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Mothers at Cards: Motherhood and Gaming in Two Late Georgian English Novels

牌桌上的母親:兩部英國喬治亞晚期小說裡的母親與賭博

摘要


Gaming is a significant and recurrent theme in eighteenth-century English literature. Often a target of criticism, gaming includes female gamesters, who are especially censured. In the eighteenth century, English society also witnesses the birth of maternal ideology and demands that women be responsible and sentimental mothers. Gaming mothers in eighteenth-century literature conflict with that demand; yet, through these figures, their authors also suggest an alternative idea of maternity and motherhood. In exploring this subject matter, this essay studies two late Georgian English novels, Anna Maria McKenzie's The Female Gamester; or, the Pupil of Fashion (1796) and Charles Sedley's The Faro Table; or, the Gambling Mothers (1808). The essay's argument is twofold: it is first that the characterization of gaming mothers in the two novels ostensibly warns readers against the danger of gaming and reminds women of the importance of domestic responsibility; and second that eighteenth-century fictional gaming mothers, gaming culture, ideas about motherhood, and the discourse of so-called unnatural mothers, reflect English social anxiety about female virtue and positive motherhood. In other words, gaming mothers are figures who deviate from the common concept of natural maternity, reflecting the rise of a feminist consciousness, and function as a comment on a patriarchal hierarchical order. Such critical understanding of mothers at cards widens understandings of so-called monstrous or unnatural mothers in eighteenth-century literature.

並列摘要


賭博是十八世紀英國文學裡一個重要且不斷出現的主題。賭博時常成為批評的目標,女性賭客更是備受責難。十八世紀的英國社會也見證了母職意識形態的誕生,要求女性成為負責且情感豐富的母親。十八世紀文學裡的賭客母親不符合這樣的要求,然而,透過這些角色,作者對母性與母親形象提出另類的想法。本文欲藉由兩部喬治亞晚期英國小說探究此一主題,分別是安娜瑪莉亞麥肯錫(Anna Maria McKenzie)的《女賭客》(The Female Gamester; or, the Pupil of Fashion, 1796)和查爾斯西德利(Charles Sedley)的《法羅牌桌》(The Faro Table; or, the Gambling Mothers, 1808)。本文有著雙重論證:首先,在這兩部小說裡賭客媽媽的角色刻畫,明顯地警告讀者賭博的危險性,並提醒女性,家庭責任的重要性;其次,十八世紀小說中的賭客母親、賭博文化、對母性的想法,以及所謂的違常母親論述皆反映出英國社會對於女性美德與正面母親形象的焦慮感。換句話說,賭客媽媽是背離天然母性共識的角色,反映了女性意識的抬頭,並且對父權階級制度做出批評。這種對於牌桌上的母親的批判性理解擴展了對十八世紀文學裡所謂駭人或違常母親的認識。

參考文獻


Andrew, Donna T. “‘How Frail Are Lovers Vows, and Dicers Oaths’: Gaming, Governing and Moral Panic in Britain, 1781-1782.” Moral Panics, the Media and the Law in Early Modern England, edited by David Lemmings and Claire Walcott, Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2009, pp. 176-94.
“The Bad Consequence of Women’s Gaming,” Weekly Miscellany: or, Instructive Entertainer, 1778, London, pp. 73-75.
Bannet, Eve Tavor. The Domestic Revolution: Enlightenment Feminisms and the Novel. John Hopkins UP, 2000.
Baraitser, Lisa, and Amelie Noack. “Mother Courage: Reflections on Maternal Resilience.” British Journal of Psychotherapy, Vol. 23, No. 2, 2007, pp. 171-188.
Barker-Benfield, G. J. The Culture of Sensibility: Sex and Society in Eighteenth-Century Britain. U of Chicago P, 1992.

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